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Which IT Skills Are Pulling Big Bucks? February 07, 2010 
David Foote is CEO and chief research officer, as well as cofounder, at Foote Partners of Vero Beach, Fla. David closely tracks the hiring and human resources trends across the IT landscape. He'll share his findings of where the recession has taken IT hiring and where the recovery will shape up. We'll also look at what skills are going to be in demand and which ones are not.
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Outsourcing Lead Generation: Who Do You Trust? February 02, 2010 
Practically every business has a dirty little secret: It's called customer attrition. Rarely can a company claim someone as a customer for life. There will always be pressure from the competition -- and as a result, there will always be customer attrition. Certainly, businesses do everything they can to retain their current base, but retention isn't enough.
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Hiring Is In Again at Indian Outsourcing Firms January 21, 2010 
India's top three outsourcing companies are ramping up hiring and increasing pay as global corporations, mainly from the U.S., send more work offshore to cut costs as they emerge from the downturn. Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro expanded their global workforces by an average of 5.1 percent last quarter, together adding 16,701 employees, company documents show.
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Data Security in an Outsourced World: Who Needs a SAS 70? December 18, 2009 
In an effort to beef up internal controls and data security, service organizations have sought out SAS 70 reports to demonstrate their level of compliance. When businesses choose to outsource critical processes, the SAS 70 helps them assess and select potential providers. This assessment tool can help users identify risks related to financial fraud and data security.
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On the Prowl for New Ways to Cut Contact Center Costs November 09, 2009 
Contact center operations are constantly under scrutiny. They're complex, they're expensive to run, and employee retention and training can be problematic, to say the least. Contact center managers have a never-ending desire to streamline operations to keep spending in check.
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Xerox Buys Its Way Into BPO With $6.4B ACS Deal September 28, 2009 
Xerox said Monday that it will buy Affiliated Computer Services for $6.4 billion in cash and stock. Best known for its copying and printing business, Xerox said the move answers a growing need to better link document management to the processes that produce them -- including finance, human resources, transaction processing and customer support.
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The Shifting Call Center Paradigm September 16, 2009 
What is it about customer service that drove three major CRM companies to make announcements about their service products within days of each other last week? Oracle and Salesforce.com each announced new or completed development of functionality, and RightNow said it bought HiveLive, a social networking solution provider.
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At Home in the Virtual Office September 10, 2009 
Today's volatile economy is pushing more companies to consider the merits of a virtual workplace for some or all of their employees. Often, however, the idea fails to go anywhere because neither managers nor their workers are sure how to get started. Also, attitudes among some old-school managers pose hurdles that block workers from pursuing virtual workplace opportunities.
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The BPO Outlook: Mostly Cloudy With Patches of Sun August 17, 2009 
Five years ago, megadeals were all the rage in the business process outsourcing (BPO) world. Global players such as IBM, Accenture, ACS and CSC were racking up billion-dollar multiyear contracts, mainly for accounting, human resource and procurement functions. Now that's changing.
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Target Dumps Amazon to Steer Its Own E-Commerce Course August 07, 2009 
Target is taking control of its e-commerce operations and striking out on its own. The discount retailer plans to build and manage its own platform for Target.com when its current contract with Amazon.com runs out in 2011. Target has outsourced its Web site's platform and fulfillment operations to Amazon for the last eight years.
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Efficiency Through Outsourced Marketing: Q&A With Quaero Founder Naras Eechambadi July 27, 2009 
It may seem that CSG Systems, a provider of customer interaction and billing management software, acquired marketing company Quaero in the nick of time. The deal was announced at the end of the year -- just as it was becoming painfully clear that the recession was likely to be much deeper than initially feared.
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Should You Outsource or Keep IT In-House? July 22, 2009 
Maintaining the network. Ensuring remote users have access to resources. Updating virus definitions. Troubleshooting email problems. Any number of IT issues can arise on a daily basis. So does it make sense for small businesses to hire a full-time IT staffer or outsource their IT needs? That depends.
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Sprint Hands Off Network Management to Ericsson in $5B Deal July 10, 2009 
Sprint Nextel and Ericsson startled the telco world with the announcement that Ericsson would take over managing the day-to-day operations of Sprint's CDMA, iDEN and wireline networks. "Network Advantage," as they've termed the seven-year outsourcing deal, is valued between $4.5 billion and $5 billion.
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Outsourcing's No Longer In June 30, 2009 
Companies used to turn to outsourcing during tough financial times. The current global recession, however, has curtailed outsourcing as much as it has other parts of the economy. "Oddly enough, the global recession has hurt outsourcing significantly," said Chad Hahn, principal owner of Hahn Consulting.
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Outsource or Keep It Home? Have It Your Way: Q&A With Alpine Access CEO Chris Carrington June 08, 2009 
Not that long ago, the outsourcing of customer service to home-based agents was a small niche category, viewed as not quite on par with a bricks-and-mortar call center operation. For a number of reasons, that perception is changing -- starting with the lower costs involved and ending with the growing number of quality providers that have highly qualified staffs on hand.
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The Battle for US Tech Jobs May 21, 2009 
A while back, someone convinced businesses that if they outsourced work overseas, costs would fall off a cliff. The Wall Street lemmings jumped, believing they could fly, but instead plummeted to the depths of a global recession. Many of them are still falling, yet they continue to outsource their work offshore.
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